Land Tour
We where on the land portion of our cruise tour for five days. We flew in a day early and spent an extra day in Fairbanks, and it was well worth it. This is the five days that we spent on land were well worth it. You need to get to Alaska with plenty of time to relax and get set up. So, we’re really glad that Mike and Jennifer were able to build that time in for us.
Then we had a free day to ourselves. You could have booked excursions but we chose not to do that. We chose to explore on our own. It was fun, I will say. They didn’t have Ubers. Took a taxi everywhere we went. We went to several different breweries in Fairbanks. And we did some shopping that we would otherwise not been able to do in Indianapolis. Some of the things that they sell there that is unique to Alaska. Some of the things that are handmade in Alaska, those are the things. Types of things we were looking for a while we were there.
Cruise
On our Cruise, we were on the Grand Princess. They had all the amenities that normal cruise ship would have. We were able to know a lot of the things in advance that our ship had due to the information that that Mike and Jennifer gave us. We didn’t do an excursion on every stop.
Cabin Room
We had the balcony suite and I will never go on a cruise ship without the Balcony suite. It was definitely the views you could see for miles from that balcony. It was so neat to see the mountain goats. In Glacier Bay, the icebergs that were just floating by the cruise ship that.
Excursions
The Whale watching tour: humpback whales, seals, and otters. So, I got to see a lot of those things on, on that excursion. My favorite excursion was the train up the White Pass. It takes you into Canada and then turned around, brings you back. Really good to see a lot of things you wouldn’t normally see. What mining for gold looked like and that’s why the train was developed in that region, was for that at the time, and we were on land in Alaska. We did an ATV excursion out in the wilderness, which was just adjacent to the National Park. Which was a lot of fun. Wilderness and a lot of animals. And we saw people out there camping on their own for two or three weeks at a time.
Culture
Alaska would is a lot different than the lower 48. If you have an opportunity to visit Alaska that is, you must go. Vast wilderness, wildlife, Lots of national state parks. It seems that a lot of the experiences that we have in the lower 48 of some of the pollution and other pressures that we have motivate they. They do not have up in Alaska. And we felt very welcome. The locals did not treat us as strangers. They knew that we were providing them with their bread and butter. So, they definitely treated us well and helped if we had questions. They were very quick to answer and give recommendations and good ideas of local spots to visit or to make sure you check out before you leave this area.
Travel Tips
Preparing for Alaska was challenging. I will say that you don’t know what the weather’s gonna be. You don’t know what you’re gonna experience. So being able to plan for all of that just took a lot of thought, so thinking about cold weather. Attire versus some people wore shorts. The weather in Alaska can be almost feel summer like and then the very next day we’re wearing mittens and hats and it’s very, very cold. So, you want to plan, which makes packing a little bit more for that type of trip. What we did learn through finding out about the Alaskan trip from cruise planners was, that there are some cruise Lines that are better than take into that region than others. Just because some only a certain number of ships can go up into Glacier Bay, which is one of the best highlights of the trip to Alaska’s Glacier Bay. And they only allowed two ships up in that Bay per day. We took Princess Cruise Lines and it was very well put together the entire trip Princess is really good for that trip.
Why Alaska
We wanted to go to Alaska because it was on our bucket list. It was a bucket list trip for sure, and this was our anniversary trip for our 20-year wedding anniversary trip. So, it was a special occasion. It was a special trip and it just kind of all fell in the place.
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